rescue presentation nov. 2011

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RESCUE Report Draft 3.1 PLEASE DO NOT CITE

1

Report of the Responses to Environmental and

Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth

(RESCUE) foresight initiative

Draft 3.1

August 5th 2011


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Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth (RESCUE)

Draft Report v.3.1

(August 5th

2011

)

Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 3

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 8

The Challenge of an Unstable Earth ......................................................................................... 11

Interdisciplinarity in global change research ........................................................................ 12

Moving towards transdisciplinarity ...................................................................................... 14

New tools, methods and data ............................................................................................... 16

The need for an education revolution............................................................................... 19

Necessary institutional change ............................................................................................. 22

The RESCUE Vision .................................................................................................................... 25

An open knowledge system .................................................................................................. 25

A radically interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environment .......................................... 27

A central concern deep integration of underlying aspects of human activities ................ 28

Adopting a global perspective by comparative regional analyses ....................................... 28

Data and knowledge for global change research ................................................................. 29

Building capacity for an open knowledge system ................................................................ 29

Achieving the RESCUE Vision .................................................................................................... 31

The skills and abilities of scientists ....................................................................................... 31

Academic institutions ........................................................................................................... 32

Measuring success............................................................................................................. 33

Changing methods and approaches ..................................................................................... 34

Societal engagement............................................................................................................. 34

New forms of openness and exposure ................................................................................. 35

Supporting an open knowledge system ............................................................................... 35


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Recommendations .................................................................................................................... 37

The Roadmap ............................................................................................................................ 41

Annex 1: Composition of the Task Force and Working Groups ................................................ 45

Annex 2: Membership of the Quality Reference Group ........................................................... 47

Annex 3: Definitions of types of research ................................................................................. 48

Annex 4: Approaches to Education in Relation to Environment and Sustainability ................ 50

Annex 5: Glossary ...................................................................................................................... 52

References ................................................................................................................................ 56

Acknowledgements

This report is based on the deliberations of the RESCUE Working Groups and Task Force (see Annex 1).Thanks go in particular to the Chairs and Co-Chairs of those groups for their inputs to this document,prepared by Dr. Jill Jger. The guidance and inputs from the Chair and Co-Chair of the RESCUE ScientificSteering Committee (Professor Leen Hordijk and Professor Gsli Plsson) and the Quality ReferenceGroup (see Annex 2) chaired by Dr. Marc Heppener and the support of Dr. Bernard Avril (EuropeanScience Foundation) in organizing the entire RESCUE process and the production of this report are alsogratefully acknowledged. The participants at the various workshops but especially at the StakeholdersConference held in Brussels in May 2011 are thanked for their countless constructive inputs to thisprocess.


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Executive Summary

Humankind is facing unprecedented and accelerating global environmental changes because of humanactivities. While a holistic understanding of complex global changes has expanded markedly in the

recent past, societal and human drivers and consequences are still to be fully explored through problem-oriented, policy-driven approaches. The RESCUE foresight initiative provides recommendations to thecommunity of research and education policy makers and funders and the contributing researchcommunities at national and European levels. While recognizing that there are already some examplesof moves in the right direction, the overarching recommendation is to establish and support a strongercommon foundation across natural, social and human disciplines, for research and education, andbetween science and policy, and science and society, to ensure an integrated approach towardssustainability transitions in an open knowledge society.

1. RESCUE BackgroundThe Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth (RESCUE)

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foresightinitiative was established as a joint Frontiers of Science initiative of the European Science Foundation(ESF) and the intergovernmental initiative for European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST)2 .The work of RESCUE focussed on the following themes:

contributions from social sciences and humanities with regard to the challenges of theAnthropocene (RESCUE Social-Human);Collaboration between the natural, social and human sciences in global change studies (RESCUECollaboration);Requirements for research methodologies and data (RESCUE Requirements);Towards a revolution in education and capacity building (RESCUERevolution); andThe interface between science and policy, communication and outreach (RESCUE Interface).

2. RESCUE FindingsNew Questions and New Actions: As the natural environment is increasingly reshaped by

human activities, and the impact of human activity is beginning to equal and exceed the impact ofbiogeophysical forces, global environmental issues should be fundamentally reframed as social andhuman challenges, with new questions, requiring new approaches and new ways of thinking,understanding and acting.

Common Framework: Global change research requires contributions by academics from manydisciplines. In Europe, there is no consistent and proactive policy to further collaboration acrossdisciplines. The natural, human and social sciences should be integrated from day one to develop jointquestions on which they work together. To address the challenges of an unstable Earth, a commontheoretical and operational framework for research and innovation is needed.

Societal Transformations: The deep integration of all underlying aspects of human activitiesrelated to the environmental reshaping implies understanding the role of culture, values and behaviour

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in generating global change, analysing how problems and solutions are framed at different levels bydifferent actors, understanding the interplay between institutional factors and human agency and itstranslation to barriers and drivers of societal change. A key challenge is to steer societaltransformations through a reflexive process that requires questioning deeply held values andassumptions.

Transdisciplinarity and Methods: While mono-disciplinary research is still essential,transdisciplinary work and new research methods are required to meet the challenges of an unstableEarth through the integrated study of individual/behavioural, social and natural processes.Methodological approaches and data collection protocols should be developed through openconsultation and sufficiently formalized so that they provide the basis for comparative analyses, yet aresufficiently flexible to address case-specific issues. Methodologies should be in place that would dealappropriately with uncertainty and unknowns, support the use of exploratory agent-based modelling,combine participatory and modelling approaches, explore the roles of human values and behaviour andstimulate change. Data and knowledge acquisition should be increasingly driven by the need forsolutions towards sustainability transitions, i.e., supporting an understanding of human behaviour andfacilitating sustainability policy development.

Changes in the Production of Knowledge: A radically inter- and trans-disciplinary researchenvironment (RITE) model should be designed and supported as a translational research strategy/modelfor global change research. The interfaces between science and policy and between science andsociety as a whole must evolve. All this will facilitate the co-production of knowledge betweenresearch and policy communities and society at large.

Revolution in Education and Sustainability Learning: Similarly, a significantly different approachmust be promoted for education and capacity building to deliver the interdisciplinary and systemsresearch required to understand and address the challenges of an unstable Earth. The challenges foreducation and capacity building in the context of global environmental change cannot be met bybusiness as usual approaches or by extrapolating experiences from the past into the future. There is a

need to think differently, and the way to do this is through experiential processes, where individuals areencouraged to let go of past assumptions and question underlying beliefs. The challenge is to synthesizeand apply the latest findings from a range of research fields, including cognitive science, teachingmethods, creativity and collaborative knowledge creation to transform learning. The need is for newformal and informal educational institutions and practices from pre-school through the university andbeyond, where the focus of attention is genuinely on people. Sustainability learning is essential toadapting to complex and changing human condition in the Anthropocene. It entails a transformation ofthe university education system that trains researchers and educates citizens about resilience andsustainability; creating awareness of sustainability in the primary and secondary education systems;capacity building and education of researchers in developing countries; and sustainability education forthe decision makers and the public at large.

Institutional Change for a Open Knowledge Society: The challenges of sustainability governancerequire a new, open knowledge system. Its establishment and support requires integration ofknowledge; plurality of perspectives; dialogue processes; collective problem framing and knowledgeproduction; societal agenda setting; extended peer review; broader and more complex but transparentmetrics for research evaluation; better treatment of uncertainty and values; procedures to ensure thatboth methods and applications of knowledge production are placed in context; greater flexibility ofresearch funding; cooperation of public and private organizations; and stakeholder engagement. All of


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this will require major institutional change to build an open knowledge society. To help build it, theadoption and use of new media and new forms of public participation with expanded access toinformation, knowledge and engagement in the collective societal choices should be encouraged andfacilitated.

3. RecommendationsIn order to move substantively and rapidly in responding to the challenges of global change, the RESCUEinitiative proposes major changes in the current research paradigm by developing and implementing abroad framework of research and an open knowledge and learning system drawn from the diversity ofactors, institutions, and intellectual (re)sources in the global human society.

Recommendation 1: An Institutional Framework for an Open Knowledge Society

Target audience: Science Policy Makers, Science Funders

An open knowledge society to tackle the environmental and societal challenges of global changerequires an implementation-oriented research agenda and a corresponding institutional framework.

Participatory approaches and stakeholder engagement must bring more societal actors into the researchand the evaluation processes and must be given credit in both funding schemes and academic careers.Long-term support mechanisms are needed for integrative global change research that responds tosocietal demands.

Recommendation 2: Changes in the Research Paradigm

Target audience: Science Policy Makers, Science Funders, Research Community

Given the need to understand and include the underlying human drivers of global change, there is anurgent requirement for increasing the level of targeted support for those social sciences and humanitiesthat can contribute to this effort. Research to support transitions to sustainability must be

interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, beginning with a collective framing process that includesscientists from natural and social sciences and the humanities as well as actors from civic society, theprivate and public sectors. The Radically Inter- and Trans-disciplinary Environment (RITE) model forglobal change research needs further development and then widespread implementation.

Recommendation 3: Long-term Integrated Demonstration Projects

Target audience: Science Funders, Research Community, Practitioners, Science Policy Makers

A network of long-term integrated studies is required in order to encourage experimentation withdifferent approaches for analysing and building the capacity of regions to deal with environmentalchange and achieve sustainability. These studies must also address the human drivers and implicationsof environmental change in broad empirical contexts. The monitoring of these demonstration projects

should enhance learning about how research can contribute effectively to sustainability transitions.These studies should be supported at the European level by a series of round-tables and a virtualnetwork of institutes and major societal actors (e.g. business, civil society organizations) central toglobal change research and sustainability transitions.

Recommendation 4: Sustainability Education and Learning in an Innovative Open Knowledge Society

Target audience: Science and Education Policy Makers, Educators


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Learning is the central element of an open knowledge society and essential for adapting to the complexand changing human condition in the Anthropocene. Processes are required that engage educatorsfrom pre-school through Universities and far beyond, including a wide range of other professional areas,in a dialogue about the education and capacity building frameworks and institutions needed for an openknowledge and learning society. The new types of research needed to support sustainability transitionsand processes of engagement need new skills and capacities that must be provided by the educationsystem.

Recommendation 5: Using the Internet

Target audience: Science Policy Makers, Research Community

The Internet provides a means of access to knowledge, a repository of knowledge, a research tool andan agora that facilitates the production, diffusion and use of knowledge in responding to societalproblems related to global environmental change. There is a need to discuss the role of the internet inan open knowledge society especially with regard to issues of credibility of knowledge. At the sametime, there is a need to embrace the opportunities offered by the internet for creating networks orbringing them together.

Recommendation 6: A Dynamic, Adaptive Information System

Target audience: Science Policy Makers, Science Funders, Research Community

While numerous environmental, economic and societal information systems exist, the challenges of anunstable Earth and the development of an open knowledge society call for a dynamic dashboard ofinformation systems to provide a forum for communication. The dashboard would use indicators andmarkers for experts, decision-makers and lay people to inform each other readily about the state of thesocial-environmental system, the likely short-to medium-term changes, the intervention points andpotential consequences of alternative choices.

4.

The Way Forward

To implement the recommendations, 11 concrete steps are proposed. The first step is to develop avision for an open knowledge society that can respond effectively to the challenges of an unstable Earth.To achieve this vision, steps are proposed that will introduce a new interdisciplinary andtransdisciplinary research paradigm that supports implementation-oriented research, establish andmonitor long-term demonstration projects, and build capacity for processes of transformation.


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IntroductionHumankind is currently facing unprecedented and accelerating environmental and socio-economicchanges. The cause of many of the environmental changes witnessed in the past few decades is humanactivities: fossil fuel consumption, agriculture, land use change, urbanisation, use of non-renewableresources, transportation and so on. This emerging epoch in the Earth history has been called theAnthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000, Steffen et al., 2011). A holistic understanding of globalchange in the Anthropocene has expanded markedly, but societal and human drivers and consequencesare still to be fully explored through problem-oriented approaches. The extensive knowledge base thatscientific research has created should contribute to the development of sustainable responses to globalchange challenges. In particular, the complexities of global change, including the interlinkages betweenhuman activities and environmental changes, require studies at scales that resonate with political andsocietal agendas. Integration of research results from various disciplinary areas has had limited success;stronger common foundations between natural, social and human sciences are now needed to establisha really integrated approach from the beginning.

In this context, the Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth(RESCUE)3 foresight initiative was established as a joint "Frontiers of Science" initiative of the EuropeanScience Foundation (ESF) and the intergovernmental initiative for European Cooperation in Science andTechnology (COST)4 to

propose processes for natural sciences and social and human sciences to improve in a medium- tolong-term time frame their ability and capacity to work together, in order to respond to thepressing policy and societal needs;articulate science questions related to global change and especially those of a trans-disciplinarynature, or of major society-driven relevance;explore effective, new approaches towards truly integrated, interdisciplinary science, and tofacilitate the revolution in education it requires.

RESCUE was organized around a series of thematic activities. These were carried out by four workinggroups and one task force. The membership of these groups is listed in Annex 1. The abbreviated titlesof these groups are provided in brackets below and used throughout this report to indicate sources ofmaterial. The groups focussed on:

- contributions from social sciences and humanities with regard to the challenges of theAnthropocene (RESCUE Social-Human);

- collaboration between the natural, social and human sciences in global change studies (RESCUECollaboration);

- requirements for research methodologies and data (RESCUE Requirements);- steps towards a revolution in education and capacity building (RESCUE Revolution); and- the interface between science and policy, communication and outreach (RESCUE Interface).

Through its analyses and recommendations, RESCUE aims to enable the scientific communities, togetherwith a large variety of stakeholders, including policy makers, to develop medium- to long-term strategiesfor future research activities and applications. It is anticipated that RESCUE will have positive impacts onresearch to support transitions to sustainable development, especially in Europe where its efforts have

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primarily been focussed, through its emphasis on a common strategic understanding, improvedcoordination of scientific endeavours, and transformative education delivery.

The RESCUE activities included a kick-off meeting in Rueil-Malmaison, France, in September 2009,followed by virtual and face-to-face meetings as well as a few other dedicated activities of the workinggroups and task force. An alignment workshop was held in Ispra, Italy, in June 2010 and an integrationworkshop took place in Antwerp, Belgium, in December 2010. Finally, there was a stakeholdersconference in Brussels, Belgium, in May 2011. The work has been monitored by a Quality ReferenceGroup (Annex 2) and a Scientific Steering Group composed of the leaders of the Working Groups thatwas chaired by Professor Leen Hordijk and Professor Gsli Plsson (Annex 1). The coordination of theactivity has been led by Dr Bernard Avril of the European Science Foundation.

It was recognized at the outset (RESCUE, 2009) that the challenges set out by RESCUE have also beentaken up by diverse actors and institutions, including an earlier ESF Forward Look on Global ChangeResearch conducted in 2002 (ESF, 2002). The 2002 exercise addressed the themes of a) collaborationbetween the natural and social sciences; b) the interface between the science and policy domain; c) therequirements for monitoring and data; and d) capacity building. Since the 2002 report, which essentially

set an agenda for Earth System science with a focus on Europe, there have been substantialdevelopments in the ways that social sciences engage with the issues of global environmental change,and in the interdisciplinary dialogues between the natural and social sciences. RESCUE was thereforedevised with much deeper engagement by researchers active in the domain of the human drivers of andconsequences of global change.

The RESCUE foresight initiative is a further contribution to international debate about research forglobal sustainability5 such as the Earth System Science for Global Sustainability visioning process, ledby the International Council of Science (ICSU), with involvement of the International Social ScienceCouncil (ISSC)6, and the Belmont Challenge (IGFA, 2011)7. At the same time that RESCUE was carryingout its work, ICSU and ISSC engaged in a visioning process on global change research for global

sustainability, involving a broadly-based scientific community. This process identified five closely relatedgrand challenges (ICSU, 2010) - Forecasting, Observation, Thresholds, Responses, and Innovation. Thevisioning process also emphasized that a transition process was required (ICSU, 2010, p.6), fromresearch dominated by the natural sciences to research involving the full range of the sciences andhumanities. The process also recognized that dealing with the grand challenges requires systemicapproaches at various levels (global, regional, local) that attribute a central role to human activities,values and behaviour. ISSC is now engaged in more comprehensive global change mapping and scopingexercise within the international social science community.

A key target audience for this report is the community of research and education policy makers andfunders at national and European levels, who are best placed to implement the recommendations. It isalso of interest to all the contributing scientific communities. The report begins by examining thechallenges posed by an unstable Earth with reference to the main foci of RESCUE: interdisciplinarity,

inclusion of the social sciences and humanities, transdisciplinarity, methods, tools and data, capacitybuilding and the interfaces between science, policy and society. This is followed by a vision of an open

5For more information on research on sustainability see, for example, Jger (2009),www.essg.eu,

www.visionrd4sd.eu, orhttp://sustainabilityscience.org6

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developed by the Belmont Forum/IGFA Council of Principals,www.igfagcr.org/index.php/challenge
http://www.essg.eu/http://www.essg.eu/http://www.essg.eu/http://www.visionrd4sd.eu/http://www.visionrd4sd.eu/http://sustainabilityscience.org/http://sustainabilityscience.org/http://sustainabilityscience.org/http://www.icsu.org/http://www.icsu.org/http://www.icsu.org/http://www.issc.org/http://www.issc.org/http://www.issc.org/http://www.igfagcr.org/index.php/challengehttp://www.igfagcr.org/index.php/challengehttp://www.igfagcr.org/index.php/challengehttp://www.igfagcr.org/index.php/challengehttp://www.issc.org/http://www.icsu.org/http://sustainabilityscience.org/http://www.visionrd4sd.eu/http://www.essg.eu/


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knowledge system in which these challenges are addressed. A knowledge system organizes theproduction, transfer and utilisation of knowledge. Numerous actors and institutions are potentiallyinvolved: scientists, policy-makers, industry and business leaders, other societal groups (including civilsociety organizations) and citizens. The report then addresses the main barriers to achieving this vision,which leads to a set of recommendations on meeting the challenges of an unstable Earth. Finally, theserecommendations are translated into a series of implementable steps within a roadmap.


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The Challenge of an Unstable Earth

Research over the last two decades has documented that the Earth is undergoing major environmentaland socioeconomic changes (see for example, Steffen et al., 2004; Rockstrm et al., 2009; Reid et al.,2010). Climate change, land degradation, deforestation, biodiversity loss and changes of water qualityand quantity are prominent examples of global environmental changes. The intensity and rate of changefor many of these examples have never been recorded in the most recent geological era, the Holocene,or even in the Quaternary (IPCC, 2007). Globalisation, demographic changes, the scarcity of food, energyand raw materials and the widening gap between rich and poor are examples of socio-economic trendsthat are closely linked with the environmental changes. Furthermore, processes such as climate changeor biodiversity loss could lead to a number of irreversible tipping points, including the dieback of theAmazon rainforest and decay of the Greenland ice sheet (Lenton et al., 2008). Despite agreementsreached almost 20 years ago at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro,little has been achieved in putting the planet onto a sustainable track.

Global change challenges have been described in the literature as "wicked problems", a term that refersto problems that are difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changingrequirements that are often difficult to recognize (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Moreover, because ofcomplex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or createother problems. Long-term environmental challenges, which are commonly also global, have beendefined as "public policy issues that last at least one human generation, exhibit deep uncertaintyexacerbated by the depth of time, and engender public goods aspects both at the stage of problemgeneration as well as at the response stage" (Sprinz, 2009, p. 2; CCSP, 2009). This points to the longtime-scales and structural uncertainty inherent in global environmental challenges, and to the negativeexternalities likely to underlie the problem generation stage and hamper success at the response stage.

As noted by RESCUE Social-Human, since the environment is increasingly refashioned by humanactivities8, there is a need to radically reframe global environmental problems as fundamentally social moving beyond the traditional, narrow confinement in both academic and public discussions of theenvironment to the natural domain. While such a reframing presents massive challenges forscholarship, governance, public understanding and engagement and policy making, it is the onlymeaningful way to go. It is the precondition not only for the mitigation of environmental problems andfor societal adaptation to the unavoidable ones but also for the broader task of reconceptualising thehuman condition in the Anthropocene epoch. The term Anthropocene has been proposed in referenceto an emerging fundamentally new epoch in planetary history, a successor to the current Holoceneepoch. Given that the impact of human activity is now of the same magnitude as biogeophysical forces,this creates a completely novel situation posing fundamentally new questions and requiring newapproaches and ways of thinking, understanding and acting. RESCUE Social-Human reflects on the

implications of this unprecedented situation in planetary and human history.

8See, for instance, Landscape in a Changing World Bridging Divides, Integrating Disciplines, Serving Society.

ESF- COST Science Policy Briefing #41, 2010. 16p.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/3/4/045017/fulltext#erl274972bib24#erl274972bib24http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/3/4/045017/fulltext#erl274972bib24#erl274972bib24


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Overall, the work of the RESCUE working groups and task force has pointed to a number of deficits inthe science/research/education system, which makes it difficult or even impossible to meet thechallenges of an unstable Earth. These are discussed in this section.

Interdisciplinarity in global change researchDisciplinary specialisation has been the basis of scientific progress certainly since the nineteenth

century; Karl Pearson described the needfor discipline-based research per se in his book, The Grammarof Science, first published by Walter Scott in 1892. Disciplinary specialisation will remain one of theproductive divisions of knowledge labour in the future (as described for example in the medical field byToby Gelfand (1976) and discussed in many other studies). It has been noted, however, thatdisciplinarity sometimes has a restrictive inertia of its own, not least through the tendency of academicelites to seek to protect their turf, which needs to be overcome or counter-acted. This point has beenemphasized in a previous ESF report, The Future of Knowledge: Mapping Interfaces (ESF, 2010), partlydrawing upon Lloyd (2009). Real-world problems do not conform to disciplinary divides. Large problemscall for contributions from many angles, and very often complex problems cannot be understood andindeed solved by one scientific discipline. Global change research is one such field that clearly requirescontributions by academics from many disciplines.

Various terms are used to describe interfaces between research fields (see Annex 39). While calls forresearch funding often cite interdisciplinarity as a desired methodology for large research projects, it

may not be clear what is intended, either to the research team writing the proposal, or to the reviewersassessing the proposals and teams combined strengths. In addition, Klein (2010) gives an overview ofthe different forms of interdisciplinarity in US universities, varying from informal networks to recognizedfields and institutes. The lack of standard and/or uniform definitions across the funding bodies andresearch institutions is an issue that must be addressed and Annex 3 proposes definitions to be applied.

Cooperative and integrative efforts in global change research are nothing new. From early reportsincluding that of the Club of Rome (Meadows et al., 1972) onwards, research has combined the insightsof many disciplines. In nearly all domains of global change research, the role of humans is a key factor asa driving force, a subject of impacts, or an agent in mitigating impacts and adapting to change. Whileadvances have been made in the conceptualisation and practice of interdisciplinary global changeresearch in fields such as climate change and urban sustainability, approaches have tended to frameinterdisciplinarity as depending on individual researchers taking the initiative, rather than understandingthat complex problems which cut across disciplines may require new epistemological frameworks andmethodological practices that exceed any one discipline.

A review of how the concept of interdisciplinarity is used by various research organisations for globalchange research by RESCUE Collaboration reveals that there is no consistent and proactive policy tofurther collaboration across disciplines, although there are examples of policy and practice. At the firstGlobal Change Open Science Conference in Amsterdam in 2001, participants from more than 100

countries signed the Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change. This called for a new system of globalenvironmental science that () will draw strongly on the existing and expanding disciplinary base of

global change science; integrate across disciplines, environment and development issues and the natural

9Based on personal communication from Professor Karl Georg Hyer, Oslo University College, on definitions in

DEA (2008) as well as on further communication from the RESCUE COLLABORATION WG and the QRG. See alsoBhaskar et al. 2010.


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and social sciences (Moore et al., 2001). In response, four international global environmental changeresearch programmes10 initiated in the 1980s or 1990s, formed the Earth System Science Partnership(ESSP)11. Within this partnership, the research examines the structure and functioning of the Earthsystem including the changes taking place and their implications for global and regional sustainability(Leemans et al., 2009).

Although there are laudable examples of interdisciplinary global change research (see, for example, theexample below) the present situation is not fully fit for dealing with global change challenges. One majorreason is that interdisciplinary global change research is not yet widespread. At most universities andother (academic) research institutions, as well as in funding bodies, the mono-disciplinary approach hasthe upper hand. Furthermore, proponents of interdisciplinary global change research at times relegatehuman and social science research to an auxiliary, advisory, and essentially non-scientific status. Socialand human science research should now feed deeply into global change research to further ourunderstanding of human-environment interaction (Crumley, 2007; Lvbrand et al. 2009; ISSC-CIPSH,2010). This would also open up new areas and new ways of interdisciplinary collaboration between(already interdisciplinary) global change research and fields not yet involved. Moreover,interdisciplinarity is too often not integrated from the start. The natural, human and social sciences

should be integrated from day one to develop joint questions on which they work together. To addressthe challenges above, a common theoretical and operational framework is needed for interdisciplinaryresearch issues.

An example of interdisciplinary success. (Source: RESCUE Collaboration)

Interdisciplinarity can be found within one centre/institute that covers several disciplines andsometimes between different monodisciplinary centres/institutes that form together a multidisciplinaryconsortium. An example is the Centre for Environmental Sciences of Hasselt University (Belgium), amultidisciplinary centre with biologists, chemists, doctors, economists and lawyers. They consider one oftheir finest examples of successful interdisciplinary research as their research on the remediation of soilscontaminated with heavy metals. Biologists look at the possibility of phytoremediation (a technique

using trees/plants to take up the heavy metals), chemists look at the possibilities to use the trees/plantsto produce something else, such as bio-oil and/or biochar, economists look at costs and benefits (fordifferent trees/plants), mainly to convince farmers to put these specific trees or plants on theircontaminated land, and lawyers look at the legal possibilities of cleaning up a soil withphytoremediation and of using the contaminated trees/plants as biomass to produce bio-oil.

Research mechanisms are needed that support the identification of agreed, shared and co-created inter-disciplinary research agendas (for example, the seed-corn, sometimes referred to as "sand-pit", fundingof the joint UK Research Councils Programme on Rural Economy and Land Use12). This funding hasrevealed that successful inter-disciplinary working requires an acceptance between representatives ofdifferent disciplines of the need to provide opportunities for scientists to learn one anothers languages,

with "translation" being a prerequisite for the development of shared research agendas (Bracken andOughton, 2006).

10DIVERSITAS (www.diversitas-international.org), IGBP (www.igbp.net), IHDP (www.ihdp.org), and WCRP

(www.wcrp-climate.org)11

www.essp.org12

www.relu.ac.uk
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Moving towards transdisciplinarityIn order to avoid potentially catastrophic changes and to build on opportunities to improve human well-being of the current and future generations, there is an urgent need to make changes at the interfacebetween science and policy and indeed between science and society as a whole (e.g., KLSC, 2011).This requires open cooperation between the science community and all others with relevant knowledgefor contributing to solutions for the complex problems of sustainability. Such cooperation is rare today.

Transdisciplinary research is currently emerging in the research landscape as an approach that focuseson a problem that is, as described by Wickson et al. (2006, p.1048) in the world and actual as opposedto in my head and conceptual. The authors further argue that this implicitly assumes the notion ofcreating change and contributing to solutions, based on the integration of different disciplinarymethodologies and, ideally, epistemologies, which involves collaboration with stakeholders and thebroader community. According to Wickson et al. (2006, p.1053), transdisciplinary research [and thus bydefinition education] processes emphasize the importance of reflexivity:

When researchers become engaged in the problem they are investigating , assumptions of

objectivity will inevitably come into question. This means that it becomes important for the

researcher to reflect on how their own frames of reference/values/beliefs/assumptions etc. haveshaped the conceptualization of the problem, as well as the development of the method of

investigation and the solution.

There is broad agreement that sustainability research has to overcome the linear model of knowledgeproduction, within which science proposes, society disposes (Guston and Sarewitz, 2002, p.95).Sustainability research is hence part of what Gibbons, Nowotny and colleagues term Mode 2 knowledgeproduction that takes place in the context of application and provides socially robust knowledge(Gibbonset al., 1994; Nowotnyet al., 2001). Accordingly sustainability research is conceptualized as co-production of knowledge, the co- standing for a process of engagement of academic and non-academic knowledge producers (Lemos and Morehouse, 2005; Robinson and Tansey, 2006). The

resulting network-character of knowledge in the sense of interlinking knowledges of differentdisciplines and actors of civil society, the private sector, and public agencies is accentuated by Cash etal. (2003), speaking of knowledge systems for sustainable development. Such knowledge systems span

the boundary between science and other sectors of society, as well as the gap between knowledge andaction. In their analysis of such knowledge systems, Cash et al (2003, p.8086-8) found that efforts tomobilize S&T for sustainability are more likely to be effective when they manage boundaries betweenknowledge and action in ways that simultaneously enhance the salience, credibility, and legitimacy ofthe information they produce. There are alternative methodological and institutional approaches ofhow to create such knowledge systems or co-production of knowledge, like specialized boundaryorganisations (Guston, 2001) or transdisciplinary research processes (Pohl, 2008). As indicated byRESCUE Interface, three specific points should get due attention in such processes of co-producingknowledge: problem framing, integration and implementation.

Good Practice Example: Awards for transdiciplinary research

Location: SwitzerlandMain actors involved: Stiftung Mercato SchweizTime frame: Initiated in 2003, awarded every 2 years


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Description: Every two years, the td-net for transdisciplinary research grants the Swiss-academies award for transdisciplinary research to an outstanding transdisciplinary researchproject by an individual or a research group. The award amounts to CHF 75,000

More information:http://cms.stiftung-mercator.ch/cms/front_content.php?idcat=134

Table 1 points to the differences between different types of research in terms of disciplinary orientation,aims, methods used and approaches taken. Transdisciplinarity is in the right-hand column and much ofthe research called for in response to the challenges of an unstable Earth is of the implementation-oriented type, bridging the gap between knowledge and action.

Many barriers to effective working across the interface between science and policy and wider societyhave already been identified and solutions proposed by academics and research funders, but theytend to focus on just one dimension or target audience. The challenges of cross-boundary working arealso well-recognised outside of the research context: businesses are especially attuned to the need totackle internal cultural issues because failure to do so has a direct bearing on capacity to meet customer

needs.

It is necessary to acknowledge the deeply embedded norms and power relations of the knowledgesystem in which we currently operate. These relate to the actual structure and functioning of researchendeavours within its boundaries and how these boundaries are managed by researchers and otherstakeholders. They also affect the relationships between research with policy makers and more broadly,with the overall society in which science is embedded.

Table 1: The different kinds of research (Source: Moll and Zander, 2006)
http://cms.stiftung-mercator.ch/cms/front_content.php?idcat=134http://cms.stiftung-mercator.ch/cms/front_content.php?idcat=134http://cms.stiftung-mercator.ch/cms/front_content.php?idcat=134http://cms.stiftung-mercator.ch/cms/front_content.php?idcat=134


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New tools, methods and dataGlobal change poses unprecedented challenges to both the science and policy communities, and theseare challenges that cannot be tackled with concepts and methods developed and applied in the past.Both the environmental and the social sciences have sought to address these challenges, the formerthrough the development of Earth System Science (e.g., Schellnhuber, 1999; Steffen et al., 2004) and thelatter through critical analysis of processes of globalisation (e.g., Amin and Thrift, 1994). However, thesealternative conceptualisations have not been integrated, despite recognition that new forms of inter-and trans-disciplinary knowledge creation, and new forms of inquiry, are needed. In fact, despite theneed expressed in the Amsterdam Declaration (2001) to move towards a more integrated perspective,the research agenda of global change programmes continues to be framed and dominated by thenatural sciences. In their summary of insights from the ICSU visioning exercise, Reid et al. (2010) pointedout that the most pressing research questions were quite different from those that initially shapedglobal change programmes, and that the social sciences and humanities must play a central role in thenext phase of global change research. This becomes all the more necessary as the balance of attentionshifts from defining the impacts of human activities on the environment to identifying pathways forsocietal change.

Research methods are needed that allow integrated study of pertinent, individual/behavioural, socialand natural processes and their respective consequences for each other. This suggests a renegotiationof the relationship between the humanities, social and environmental sciences that can foster newresearch agendas suited to the policy requirements for the challenges of global change. Much has beenwritten on the problems and research questions to be addressed in global change research, but far lessattention has been devoted to the requirements for methodologies, methods and knowledge, data toaddress these challenges (see RESCUE Requirements). A lack of appropriate methodologies andknowledge is a key bottleneck in dealing with the global change challenges.

There are powerful forces that maintain a strong research focus on the paradigmatic scientific role ofclimate and climate change, although global change is felt more through real (as opposed to global,

average statistical) phenomena that are local (such as water and food quality and availability), and thereare other global challenges (such as biodiversity decline or energy and raw material availability). Thereare also deeply embedded assumptions that physical-numerical, computational models constitute a coretechnology to support policy, and that quantitative data are to be prioritized relative to qualitativeevidence, information and value-laden judgement. Incorporating human values, environmental ethicsand social justice into the conventional paradigm for analysis requires a radical adjustment of world-view and scientific method (e.g., KLSC, 2011). There are also key assumptions about the relationshipbetween science and policy (see also the previous section) - a belief that "science speaks truth topower" remains embedded in spite of the evidence of a much more nuanced, convoluted, and globallydiverse set of relationships.

Methodologies in global change research need to be assessed by their inclusiveness and an absence ofaprioriframing that prevents the integration of some kinds of knowledge. In this respect the dominanceof large simulation models in global change research has to be assessed critically. Such models followlargely a positivist approach and exclude certain traditions in the humanities and social sciences thatfollow more an interpretative paradigm. The latter paradigm emphasizes embeddedness in contextsshaped by cultural, political, economic, social and institutional factors. It often employs qualitative


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methods and adopts an action research13 perspective rather than that of the detached observer. Anerroneous presumption classically applied in natural science or engineering is that integration of socialscience knowledge into global change studies can be through addition of socio-economic processes intothese model structures. However, this raises critical issues about both the viability of representing theseprocesses in numerical form, and the implications of doing so for the policy application of modelsimulations. What are required are innovative methodologies that support an integration of theinterpretative and the positivist research paradigms, which offer complementary rather than conflictiveperspectives. In this regard there are experiments with the reflexive interventionist/multi-agent-based(RIMA) scenario approach (Wilkinson and Eidinow, 2008).

Only through the analysis of the behaviours of individuals and groups within socio-ecosystems canscientifically sound methods for exploring and understanding the emergent properties of such complexand adaptive (evolving) systems be developed. In turn, it is only through the understanding of theemergent properties of the socio-ecological system that the capabilities needed for any approachtargeting global change can be developed. Developing capabilities to analyse and, possibly, to simulatethe behaviour of individuals and groups within different societal structures and environmental contextsappears as one of the most promising avenues for understanding the drivers and barriers for change.

This includes developing improved understandings of the ways that values, beliefs and worldviewsinfluence perceptions of and responses to environmental change (O'Brien and Wolf, 2010). In thisregard, as pointed out by Balbi & Giupponi (2010) there is an increasing awareness that global changedynamics and the related socio-economic implications involve a degree of complexity that is notcaptured by traditional approaches based on equilibrium models. In particular, such analyses of human-environment systems do not consider the emergence of new behavioural patterns. This eventually leadsto a flawed policy-making process that relies on unrealistic assumptions (Moss et al., 2001). Caballero(2010) recently added that the current core of macroeconomicsby which I mainly mean the so-calleddynamic stochastic general equilibrium approachhas become so mesmerized with its own internallogic that it has begun to confuse the precision it has achieved about its own world with the precisionthat it has about the real one. This is dangerous for both methodological and policy reasons. Within

economics, a substantial rethinking is underway regarding the capability of mainstream methods to dealwith the complexity and the dynamics of current and future societal systems. Similar statements aremade for other research fields related to global environmental change and its human drivers andconsequences (e.g., Stern et al., 1992; Fraser et al., 2003; US-GCRP, 2003).

Discrete or statistical data on human population characteristics and behaviours are widely collectedthrough censuses and surveys. Data on human behaviour often rely on inference and may run up againstconfidentiality concerns. In addition, even data on population characteristics vary widely in their quality,completeness, and comparability among countries. Other data-related issues include restricted access toor availability of data, the multiplicity of data sources and standards, the high cost of commerciallyproduced data, data loss, and the costs of quality control and long-term archiving of data sets that wereborn digital and which may have future value as baseline data or for longitudinal analysis. Large

geographical areas of the Earth lack the necessary density of data coverage for reliable description ormodelling by conventional methods (notably, but not exclusively, in Africa). Even in economically

13Action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in

teams or as part of a "community of practice" to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Actionresearch can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professionalresearchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices, and knowledge of the environments withinwhich they practice (see, for example, Greenwood and Levin, 1998).


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wealthy countries, this density may be threatened by short-term policy exigencies. As well as the spatialand temporal coverage being uneven, there is often a problem of inter-temporal comparability. Indeed,innovation may itself be as much a barrier as a solution, since there is a considerable need for continuityand reliability in data streams rather than frequent short-term innovation and instability, especiallybecause short-term, low-risk innovation is often prioritized by academia and research funders. This istrue even of remotely-sensed environmental data, but is even more marked for social science data,where long-term monitoring has been less systematic, funding for data collection is limited, and wherethere may even be a tendency for research funders and policy-makers to alter data protocols in order tofrustrate the very longitudinal study that is required.

Data constitute the raw material of scientific understanding and science (and methodological)innovation is, in part, data driven (WDC, 2009; CODATA, 2007)14. New sources of data and associatedtools, such as crowd-sourced and citizen-science data, participatory science e-data, SciScope15, and everhigher resolution satellite imagery, are driving innovations in science and also in praxis (Dozier and Gail,2009). Data-sharing principles being developed under the INSPIRE16 Directive in Europe and under theGroup on Earth Observations (GEO) globally (GEO, 2009), and in other contexts are paving the way togreater accessibility with fewer restrictions. The increasing number and sophistication of satellite

instruments has led to an exponential increase in data availability to scientists working on climate,biophysical and biogeographical systems, and have brought about significant innovations in thesedisciplines. To be sure, these data can also be useful to social scientists (de Sherbinin et al., 2002, deSherbinin, 2010), but our ability to make inferences about individual behaviour from satelliteobservations is still limited and depends heavily on field-based observations and, critically, census andsurvey data. Furthermore, much can be learned about socio-ecological systems and human vulnerabilityand resilience to global environmental change by integrating data from the social and natural sciences ina spatial framework (e.g., Balk et al., 2005; de Sherbinin, 2009; Dilley et al., 2005).

At present, not many shared data bases and protocols exist in global change research, and particularly inthe social sciences. This set of data resources is far from being comprehensive, integrated or inter-

operational. One initiative to improve this situation is promoted by a group of scholars working on thegovernance of social-ecological systems, who have started to assemble in a loose network to developthe foundations for such shared databases and protocols for analysis (RESCUE Requirements). In orderto analyse more broadly the potential and limitations of such undertakings more support is required forinfrastructure and methodological development and incentives are needed for wide participation insuch joint efforts.

Many global change case study analyses have been conducted in isolation. Hence it is quite difficult tocome to general insights and to be able to conduct comparative analyses. Some scholars have suggestedwhat can be called a diagnostic approach taking into account complexity in a systematic fashion (e.g.,Grimm et al., 2005; Alessa et al., 2006; Ostrom, 2007; Smith and Stirling, 2007; Young, 2008; Norberg

14 The World Data Center system (WDC;www.ngdc.noaa.gov/wdcandwww.icsu-wds.org) of the InternationalCouncil for Science (ICSU) works since the early 1960s to guarantee access to solar, geophysical and relatedenvironmental data. It serves the whole scientific community by assembling, scrutinizing, organizing anddisseminating data and information. Recognizing a world-wide demand for useful, reliable and readily availablescientific and technological data, in 1966 ICSU established a Committee on Data for Science and Technology(CODATA;www.codata.org) to promote throughout the world the evaluation, compilation and dissemination ofdata for science and technology and to foster international collaboration in this field.15

www.sciscope.org16

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE),http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/wdchttp://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/wdchttp://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/wdchttp://www.icsu-wds.org/http://www.icsu-wds.org/http://www.icsu-wds.org/http://www.codata.org/http://www.codata.org/http://www.codata.org/http://www.sciscope.org/http://www.sciscope.org/http://www.sciscope.org/http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/http://www.sciscope.org/http://www.codata.org/http://www.icsu-wds.org/http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/wdc


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and Cumming, 2008; Pahl-Wostl, 2009). Such an approach should support context-sensitive analysiswithout being case-specific and thus not transferable. This is a major methodological challenge sinceactive stakeholder involvement is rather driving case studies towards becoming entirely case specific. Arequirement for comparative analyses would be to develop and agree on methodological approachesand data collection protocols that are both sufficiently formalized so that they provide the basis forcomparative analyses yet sufficiently flexible to address case specific issues and developments. In thisdirection, there are some attempts to produce a typology of knowledge integration in case studies oftransdisciplinary research (e.g., Zierhofer and Burger, 2007).

The need for an education revolutionThe important role of education was acknowledged 20 years ago in the following statement: Education*+ should be recognized as a process by which human beings and societies can reach their fullest

potential. Education is critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of thepeople to address environment and development issues (Agenda 21, 1993; Chapter 36). The WorldBanks Global Knowledge Learning launched in 1996 is another early demonstration of the belief thatknowledge in democratic governance is a key factor for poverty reduction and sustainable development

(Blindenbacher, 2010).

The potential consequences of human impacts on the environment have provoked many arguments forurgent and unprecedented responses, from calls for transformations in energy systems and a shift tomore sustainability ways of living, to calls for geoengineering projects and authoritarian eco-regimes(e.g., Brown, 2009; Shearman and Smith, 2007; Victor et al., 2009). Underlying many of these argumentsis a growing recognition that responses to the complex environmental and social challenges of the 21stCentury require a radically different approach to education and capacity building. Education appears toplay a critical role in developing understanding and building capacity to address the complex, non-linearand potentially irreversible environmental changes associated with human activities (RESCUE, 2009).There is, however, concern that most universities and research institutes are limited in their delivery ofthe type of interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary knowledge needed to address environmental problems;they certainly are not delivering as quickly as scientific findings suggest is necessary ( RescueRevolution).

Since the 19th Century, a powerful and highly successful model for education and capacity building haspredominated in the Western world, which has been exported to all corners of the world. This modelhas been built around the demands of the industrial era, and includes the development of disciplinaryexpertise, academic autonomy, and transmission of knowledge and information to develop a societythat promotes material and technological progress and achievement. In recent years, this model has (inmany parts of the world) included a greater role for the private sector, with an emphasis onstandardization, learning outcomes, and performance indicators. As Sterling (2001, p.40) argues, *t+hismanagerial approach in education reflects mechanistic beliefs in determinism and predictabilitywhich

leads in turn to a belief in the possibility and merits of control. The approach favo urs educating peopleto adapt to change, rather than building their capacity to shape and create change (Sterling, 2001).

However, in light of scientific and social advances, strong evidence is accumulating that a new phase ofsystematic education and capacity building in sustainable development / sustainability will be needed,which integrates a diversity of methods and goals at all levels (e.g., Hesselink et al., 2000; Adams, 2006;Hoffman and Barstow, 2007; Jrg et al., 2007; Esbjrn-Hargens et al., 2010; Jones et al., 2010). From thepractices of pre-school and school education to institutions for higher education, and from the learning


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and knowledge diffusion activities of scientific research to adult learning and skill acquisition, thechallenge is to synthesize and apply the latest findings from a range of fields, including cognitive science,teaching methods, creativity and collaborative knowledge creation to transform education such that itcan meet the challenges and uncertainties of global environmental change. New approaches to researchand education are now seen as the foundation for building the capacity to respond to environmentalchange. Suggested approaches include Radical Inter-and Trans-disciplinary Education (RITE) (RESCUECollaboration), and a greater emphasis on systems analysis, higher-order thinking, and resiliencethinking (Walker and Salt, 2006; Reid et al., 2008; Fazey et al., 2009; Sterling, 2010; Krasny et al., 2011).Knowledge, it has been argued, can no longer be seen as separate and disconnected from actors andpolicy processes (RESCUE Interface), and new methods and approaches to collecting, managing, andinterpreting data are regarded as necessary to understand dynamic changes (RESCUERequirements).

In short, it is becoming clear that business as usual or more of the same will no longer be suitable,and that nothing less than a revolution in education and capacity building is needed to confront the

challenges posed by global environmental change. The changes in education and capacity building thatare needed in response to contemporary and future environmental and social challenges will requiremore than adjustments in current educational systems, research funding strategies, and interdisciplinary

collaborations. While such interventions may be important and necessary, they represent first orderchanges or doing more of the same, but better (Sterling , 2001). Instead, RESCUE Revolution arguesthat there is a need to promote second- or even third-order changes that involve re-thinking systems byseeing things differently (Sterling, 2001, p.28). In other words, the revolution in education andcapacity building is not simply a technical problem, as defined by Heifetz et al. (2009) as a problem thathas known solutions that can be implemented through current know-how, but also is an adaptivechallenge that can only be addressed through changes in peoples mindsets, priorities, beliefs, habits

and loyalties (Hoffman and Barstow, 2007; Reid et al., 2008; Heifetz et al., 2009; Kegan and Lahey, 2009;Jones et al., 2010).

Examples of Interdisciplinary Education

Interdisciplinary schools established to promote education for sustainability include:

The ETH Sustainability network, Zurich, CH; the Institute of Human-Environment Systems at the SwissFederal Institute of Technology, Zurich, CH; the Oslo Sustainability Initiative at the University of Oslo,Norway; the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden; the STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex,Brighton, UK; the International Research Institute in Sustainability at the University of Gloucestershire,Cheltenham, UK; the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany; the InternationalCenter for Transdisciplinary Research in France; the Universit Interdisciplinaire de Paris, France;Doctoral School Sustainable Development at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences,Vienna, Austria; the Centre of Transdisciplinary Cognitive and State-System Sciences, Austria; the Schoolfor Sustainability at the Arizona State University, USA; the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at thePortland State University, USA; the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at theUniversity of British Columbia, Canada; the PhD in Social and Ecological Sustainability at the University ofWaterloo, Canada; the Transdisciplinary Doctoral Programme focusing on Complexity and SustainabilityStudies TsamaHUB in StellenboschUniversity, South Africa.


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Many institutions of higher education have already responded to the call for more interdisciplinaryresearch (see examples in box). Interdisciplinary research programs have been fostered by theinternational global change research community of the International Council for Sciences (ICSU) and theGlobal Change System for Analysis, Research and Training (START)17. But reforms have been relativelyslow, and in some cases even counter-productive. For example, many of the initiatives consist of cliptogether course offerings that do not include a coherent framework for understanding complexprocesses of social-ecological systems, including deeper issues linked to psychology, consciousnessstudies, cultural studies, and so on. The fact that much has been tried, with less than satisfactory results,suggests that it may be necessary to seek answers outside of the traditional responses and institutions.In other words, innovative approaches to solving persistent problems are needed.

Often the repeated calls for more interdisciplinary global environmental change research, new framingsof environmental and societal problems, more stakeholder participation, and so on represent acontinuous revolution around an unchanging and even unrecognized or invisible axis. This axis, onecould argue, represents a core set of unquestioned assumptions that lead to only small and step-wisechanges (including a few new models of good practices in interdisciplinary research on sustainability).Drawing on this image of revolution, RESCUE Revolution suggests that the majority of existing

approaches to education are primarily spinning on an unquestioned and invisible axis. Most approachestreat the challenge for education and capacity building as a technical problem that requires adjustmentsin current practices. To move beyond this particular type of circular revolution, it may be necessary toidentify an alternative approach, i.e. changing the axis by questioning current beliefs and assumptionsregarding the delivery of education.

Good Practice Example: Barefoot College in Rajashtan

Location: IndiaMain actors involved: A collective of urban educated persons and professionals registered asSocial Work and Research Centre, rural communities

Time frame: Established in 1972

Description: This is an example of new initiatives on South-South learning using differentlanguages, including art and non-scientific jargon now emerging in the field of sustainability. Inthe Barefoot College in Rajashtan, India, illiterate women learn about the use of solartechnology and then share their knowledge with other illiterate women.

In the meantime, Barefoot Colleges philosophy has spread over a network that has grown

organically throughout India and even Africa. The women at Barefoot College learn how to solvetheir everyday problems in a sustainable way and strive for a more balanced society. It is fundedthrough grants and donations received from the Government of India, international fundingagencies as well as private foundations, and through Income generated through own sources.

More information: http://vooruit.be/en/page/1491 ; http://thoughtsandtalks.so-on.be;http://www.barefootcollege.org

17www.start.org
http://vooruit.be/en/page/1491http://vooruit.be/en/page/1491http://thoughtsandtalks.so-on.be/http://thoughtsandtalks.so-on.be/http://www.barefootcollege.org/http://www.barefootcollege.org/http://www.start.org/http://www.start.org/http://www.start.org/http://www.start.org/http://www.barefootcollege.org/http://thoughtsandtalks.so-on.be/http://vooruit.be/en/page/1491


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Significantly, RESCUE recognizes that *t+he dualism of nature and culture *+ both obstructs ourunderstanding ofwhat is global change and weakens our ability to address those challenges (RESCUE,2009). This dualistic worldview that separates humans and environment represents the ontological basisfor modernity and positivist science (e.g., Castree, 2005). The questions are: what kind of capacity isnecessary to move beyond this dualism? What kind of education is needed to play a role in building thiscapacity and changing the way that problems are understood and addressed? The predominantapproaches to the problems discussed above often fall prey to this dualism, and this observation drivesus to look for the roots underlying such approaches. Bohm (1992) pursued such an inquiry and foundincoherence in perceptions and the fragmentation of thought to be at the heart of such issues.

There is clearly a need for a comprehensive and strategic approach to capacity building to addresscomplex global change problems (e.g., Leemans et al., 2009). The key challenges for research identifiedthrough the ICSU visioning processes and Belmont forum will require an enhanced research andeducation capacity to address them through interdisciplinary research (Reid et al., 2010; ICSU, 2010;IGFA, 2011; KLSC, 2011).

University education systems have been the main channel for developing and disseminating

understandings of global environmental change. Yet these systems are undergoing enormous changes inresponse to social, economic, and technological changes. For example, *t+eacherless or virtual-teacherlearning is described by enthusiasts as a revolution in the making (Giridharadas, 2009). The high levelsof specialization and the division of labor promoted by the industrial revolution has led to reductionistunderstandings and actions by individuals and organizations. Different types of reforms have beenproposed and tested (see e.g., Corcoran and Wals, 2004). However, it has been argued that:

sustainability does not simply require an add-on to e xisting structures and curricula, but

implies a change of fundamental epistemology in our culture and hence also in our educational

thinking and practice. Seen in this light, sustainability is not just another issue to be added to an

overcrowded curriculum, but a gateway to a different view of curriculum, of pedagogy, or

organizational change, of policy and particularly of ethos.(Sterling, 2004, p.50).

Necessary institutional changeThe challenges of dealing with persistent problems of unsustainability require a new, open knowledgesystem. This means, as discussed throughout this report, integrative research, integration of knowledge,increased public awareness and interest, collective problem framing, plurality of perspectives, bettertreatment of uncertainty and values, extended peer review, broader and transparent metrics forevaluation, dialogue processes, societal agenda setting, and stakeholder engagement. All of this willrequire major institutional change (RESCUE Interface). The kinds of institutional changes required for anopen knowledge system to respond to sustainability challenges are elaborated further in the remainderof this report. Here one example is highlighted changes in the way that global change research isevaluated and supported.

Current processes used by the institutions bestowed with authority, funding, and peer-review capacityto decide what is good science or what type of science need to be perfo rmed are often characterizedby a particular vision of knowledge and of science that tends to be rather exclusive than inclusive.Furthermore, departmental and disciplinary segmentation, while important for the understanding of theparts, is not enough for understanding complex adaptive or evolving systems in their entirety.


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Western, modern science can be understood as a system of rules, commitments and relationshipsadopted by particular organisations to achieve multiple goals and interests which do not always ornecessarily relate to the actual quest of knowledge discovery. Current science and technology is mostlyused to expand markets (e.g., most of the EU R&D investment is framed under the label of knowledgefor growth)18, push national economic competitiveness and support military and corporate power.Science, rather than being simply and only an activity oriented to the understanding of the world aroundus, is above all, an institutional enterprise and one of the main sources and expressions of power andauthority. Many of the organisational arrangements in which research is carried out, and where thescientific professions operate, are thus not fit for or in conflict with what is needed to develop an open,diverse but at the same time integrated science which aims to support sustainability.

Collaboration in research is supported by specific funding mechanisms. Among many fundingmechanisms available for European research, the European RTD Framework Programmes , probablymore than any other single mechanism, has contributed to bring together nearly all natural and socialscience disciplines in integrative efforts. However, the European Framework Programme, with thepossible exception of the European Research Council, has not yet fully harnessed the human sciences aswell as certain parts of other basic sciences highly needed for successful global change research. New

funding programmes such as the UK Research Council programmeLiving With Environmental Change(LWEC)19, the French research consortium Climate-Environment-Society20, the French ANR programmeon Global Environmental Changes and Societies (CEP&S)21 and the German DFG Priority Programmeon Megacities - Megachallenge: Informal Dynamics of Global Change22, promise to increase fundingfor radical interdisciplinarity by programmatically cutting across all disciplines and there are also goodexamples of successful interdisciplinary collaboration for International Polar Year projects23.

A number of reports for the EC Directorate General for Research & Innovation have recommendedincreased funding for interdisciplinary research, while also deploring the inadequacy of current levels ofintegrated research responses to grand challenges. The Monitoring European Trends in Social Sciencesand Humanities (METRIS) report24 highlighted the unfulfilled potential of human and social science for

global change research and commented: The type of interdisciplinary research that is often needed totackle major academic or industrial issues cut across the distinction between the natural and the socialsciences and, increasingly, the humanities: climate change or pandemics, for instance, are issues thatnecessitate a wide-ranging cooperation between natural and social scientists. This requires deep formsof interdisciplinarity that are achieved rather than given and require significant efforts from researchers(Holm et al., 2009, p.35; Lyall, 2011).

In many systems, there is a disconnection between political will and declarations of good intentions andtheir actual implementation. Adjusting policies, funding scheme criteria and processes often takes a longtime. The need to follow the political intention combined with the path dependency and inflexibility ofan administrational system results in tensions within funding schemes. Changing the funding schemes is

18See, for instance, in connection with the Lisbon Agenda, the work of the EC Expert Group on Knowledge for

Growth (K4G, 2005-2009),http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/monitoring/knowledge_en.htm19

http://www.lwec.org.uk20

http://www.gisclimat.fr/en21

http://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/programmes-de-recherche/appel-detail/changements-environnementaux-planetaires-et-societes-cep-s-2011/22

http://www.megacities-megachallenge.org/index.html23

http://ipy.arcticportal.org/24

http://www.metrisnet.eu
http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/monitoring/knowledge_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/monitoring/knowledge_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/monitoring/knowledge_en.htmhttp://www.lwec.org.uk/http://www.lwec.org.uk/http://www.lwec.org.uk/http://www.gisclimat.fr/enhttp://www.gisclimat.fr/enhttp://www.gisclimat.fr/enhttp://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/programmes-de-recherche/appel-detail/changements-environnementaux-planetaires-et-societes-cep-s-2011/http://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/programmes-de-recherche/appel-detail/changements-environnementaux-planetaires-et-societes-cep-s-2011/http://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/programmes-de-recherche/appel-detail/changements-environnementaux-planetaires-et-societes-cep-s-2011/http://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/programmes-de-recherche/appel-detail/changements-environnementaux-planetaires-et-societes-cep-s-2011/http://www.megacities-megachallenge.org/index.htmlhttp://www.megacities-megachallenge.org/index.htmlhttp://www.megacities-megachallenge.org/index.htmlhttp://ipy.arcticportal.org/http://ipy.arcticportal.org/http://ipy.arcticportal.org/http://www.metrisnet.eu/http://www.metrisnet.eu/http://www.metrisnet.eu/http://www.metrisnet.eu/http://ipy.arcticportal.org/http://www.megacities-megachallenge.org/index.htmlhttp://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/programmes-de-recherche/appel-detail/changements-environnementaux-planetaires-et-societes-cep-s-2011/http://www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr/programmes-de-recherche/appel-detail/changements-environnementaux-planetaires-et-societes-cep-s-2011/http://www.gisclimat.fr/enhttp://www.lwec.org.uk/http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/monitoring/knowledge_en.htm


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a complex administrative procedure (white papers, consultations, drafts, approvals from variouscommittees). As a result, interdisciplinary is simply added to the list of criteria for funding schemes

basically developed to support and initiate disciplinary research (i.e. the list of criteria becomesinconsistent).

An additional problem is that the review process, crucial to the quality of research, needs (oftenvoluntary) reviewers. The pool of reviewers does not yet reflect the interdisciplinary requirement.Hence it happens, that sophisticated interdisciplinary proposals are rejected based on the review of areviewer not aware of what constitutes quality and innovation in interdisciplinary research.

As a result of these concerns, a redesign of funding schemes as well as administrative processes(including adjusted qualification profiles for staff and reviewers and others) as well as re-thinking ofstructural features will be necessary in order to ensure that interdisciplinary proposals are takenseriously. The argument here is not that funding agencies should get rid of disciplinary research fundingschemes these are important as well. Interdisciplinary funding needs different structures andprocedures than mono-disciplinary funding.


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The RESCUE VisionThe challenges of an unstable Earth and the deficiencies in the research, science-policy and science-society linkages, education and capacity building spheres discussed in the previous sections inspired the

RESCUE working groups to develop a vision of a knowledge system that deals more effectively with thepersistent problems of unsustainability that are becoming increasingly clear.

The RESCUE vision is based on an innovative, open knowledge system for the Anthropocene. This meansintegrative research (discussed in detail by RESCUE Collaboration and RESCUE Social-Human),integration of knowledge (discussed in detail by RESCUE Collaboration and RESCUE Requirements),collective problem framing, plurality of perspectives, better treatment of uncertainty and values,extended peer review, broader and transparent metrics for evaluation, dialogue processes, societalagenda-setting, and stakeholder participation (discussed in detail by RESCUE Interface). All of this issupported by formal and informal education and capacity building (RESCUE Revolution).

An open knowledge system is proposed with the following characteristics:

New integrative forms of knowledge, knowledge production, and interfaces between knowledgeand its utilization that are open to stakeholders participation are essential for understandingsocietal issues, fostering socially relevant innovation, and making effective policy to addressglobal change impacts.

Scientists have a critical responsibility to collaborate openly in knowledge co-production with allother stakeholders and can do so in a variety of ways.

Learning is essential to adapting to a complex, changing condition and requires learning to learnand learning to co-produce and implement new and prior knowledge in an iterative loop oflearning, doing, and reflection.

Changes in formal and informal educational institutions and practice from pre-school throughthe university and beyond are needed to support new knowledge systems and new research

processes that are integrative, transdisciplinary, collaborative, and capable of innovation forsocietal well-being.

New media and new forms of public participation with expanded access to information forknowledge co-production and its implementation can have a very important positive butalso negative, in some cases - impact on local and global change adaptation and mitigation.

An open knowledge systemThe RESCUE vision transforms the current dominant framing of knowledge as a closed, uniform, linearand placeless system of insights and aptitudes to an adaptive framing that takes into account, promotes,and whenever possible, integrates a diversity of patterns of knowledge and modes of interactionproduced for multiple purposes and under different representations. In addition, dealing with the globalunsustainability challenge also requires overcoming many cultural dualisms such as those betweennature and society that still exist in the dominant modern Western worldview (ORiordan, 2004; see alsothe full report of the RESCUE Social-Human). This requires attitudes and approaches to science thatfocus on a holistic perspective of the complex human-social-ecological interactions and dynamics.

Within the new vision of knowledge (see Fig. 1 and the report of RESCUE Interface), the generalambition is to protect, promote and whenever possible integrate the diversity of languages, concepts,models and forms of knowledge ways that support transitions to sustainability (Tbara, 2005).


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Figure 1: The vision of an open knowledge system (right-hand side)compared to the current practice (left-hand side).

The two illustrations in Figure 1 represent in a simplified way many of the assumptions that relate to thedynamics and nature of (core/dominant) knowledge systems. In the left-hand case, it assumes thatintegration is like filling a glass with water, so when the glass is full the integration is completed. Further,the left-hand side assumes that all different types of knowledge (e.g. scientific knowledge from differentdisciplines and knowledge of stakeholders) can be and are the same. On the right-hand sidefigure, different 'clusters' of largely indivisible and irreducible nature- knowledge-practices emergefrom long-term, social-ecological systems learning and evolution. On the right-hand side, integration isseen as an open process, whereby new findings give rise to new questions, new sources and forms ofknowledge that need to be addressed and integrated. This does not mean that the knowledge cannot beimproved, and the integration cannot take place. To a certain extent a 'measure' of the advanceof knowledge in this open space is the capacity to map out those multiple and diverse sources of

relevant knowledge which are being discovered, or which remain unknown but which need to beaddressed - while respecting its unique character and without trying to reduce them to one singlelanguage or interpretative perspective. Integration thus can be improved to address certain questions,problems as well as potential solutions, many of these are overseen under the current way ofintegration (i.e. left-hand side of Figure 1) because what is integrated on the right hand sideare contextual sources of knowledge, as well as different ways of frami

rescue presentation nov. 2011

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